In these pages, I will present a text of the 1728 Dunciad in Three Books, with notes, and a somewhat revised version of my 1983 M.A. essay, “An Early Draft of The Dunciad.”
This is a work in progress and will be posted as it is completed. The first stage is to present the 1728 text of the poem with notes. The second stage will be to present my essay.
Comments may be left at my blog, The Dunciad.
The pages:
Text of 1728 Dunciad
A note on the text
I present here an edited version of the text of The Dunciad as published in May, 1728. However, I have made one significant departure from the original text. The Dunciad contains numerous names of actual persons. When the poem was first published in 1728 many of these names were signified by initial letters. Starting with the 1729 Dunciad Variorum, the names were spelled out. For the sake of readability, I have chosen to spell out all names in this version. In each instance, the notes indicate the initials that appeared in the original. In all other respects, an attempt has been made to present the text as it appeared in the first edition.